Jenessa Simmons is a 21 year old woman who was adopted and was having trouble searching for her birth parents. Sounds like a pretty typical story...except in this one case, this woman used the power of Facebook to find her birth mother within two days. This story tells us several things.
One, searching for family is a more noble cause than the near spam-like "1 million likes for..." People become more invested in the cause which generates a lot of buzz. (& We are getting really sick of people chasing after mass "likes.")
Two, anything is possible when you have 161,000 people tapping into their personal network to help you.
Three, feel good stories from the internet is still considered news-worthy because of the large amount of people invested in it.
Four, no matter how good this cause nor how successful Jenessa was, it will be incredibly harder for anyone else to gain the same amount of traction. This is the case because people find repetition uninteresting and annoying. They are plugged in for new information.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Profile Analysis
http://mashable.com/2013/02/01/facebook-mental-health/
This article on Mashable describes the findings of a University of Missouri study on the psychological indicators found on a Facebook page. The indicators included Facebook activity frequency and unusual interests. The basis of this study of 2,000 college students according to researcher Dr. Martin, is that a social networking profile can provide insight to a person's psyche that other methods cannot. "Because of the real or imagined perception of anonymity, the Internet may allow unique access to the psyche. One’s social networking information can be understood as an example of one’s naturalistic behavior."
This claim in it of itself is revealing of the attitude of social media today. People projecting their real-life personalities and tendencies onto the internet has become something of the norm and expected. A great deal has changed to social society; from the skepticism of the internet upon its debut decades ago, to the expectation of psychological analysis from a social profile today.
The findings of this study however, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The research is based on the assumption that all college students use social networking as an exact T to their inner self. The truth is more likely that the profile they create is an image of an "ideal" character they strive to attain. Any evaluation using social media analysis should be viewed as an ideal reflection than a true one.
This article on Mashable describes the findings of a University of Missouri study on the psychological indicators found on a Facebook page. The indicators included Facebook activity frequency and unusual interests. The basis of this study of 2,000 college students according to researcher Dr. Martin, is that a social networking profile can provide insight to a person's psyche that other methods cannot. "Because of the real or imagined perception of anonymity, the Internet may allow unique access to the psyche. One’s social networking information can be understood as an example of one’s naturalistic behavior."
This claim in it of itself is revealing of the attitude of social media today. People projecting their real-life personalities and tendencies onto the internet has become something of the norm and expected. A great deal has changed to social society; from the skepticism of the internet upon its debut decades ago, to the expectation of psychological analysis from a social profile today.
The findings of this study however, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The research is based on the assumption that all college students use social networking as an exact T to their inner self. The truth is more likely that the profile they create is an image of an "ideal" character they strive to attain. Any evaluation using social media analysis should be viewed as an ideal reflection than a true one.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Introducing SM
In today's heavy online activity, how much has social media changed our definition of "social"?
Social media has become highly integrated into the lives of nearly everyone who has access to the internet. The result includes people who have perfected the ability to perfectly ignore anything that has no interest to them. This is both positive and negative.
Social media provides an easy way for communities to form and for people to join them. It creates more channels for information to be shared and more avenues for people to become involved. Susie, a small town teen from Wyoming, can get fired up to help out Invisible Children and dedicate her time and efforts to support the cause, meeting many people around the world sharing her passion. Without social media, Susie may never have had the opportunity to learn about the struggle in Africa or have found the fuel to dedicate a large part of her life to help end it.
Sometimes easy access to many social outlets will mean that real life interactions are being ignored for online stimuli. While Susie found a great community to be a part of largely online, she may have started to ignore her friends at school. Katie and Todd aren't the perfect friends for Katie, they don't share a lot of the same interests and prefer the community of their small town, but they are loyal and miss Katie as she fades away from their lives. Susie chooses to stay online on forums and blogs dedicated to her cause, even during school lunches.
Social media has become highly integrated into the lives of nearly everyone who has access to the internet. The result includes people who have perfected the ability to perfectly ignore anything that has no interest to them. This is both positive and negative.
Social media provides an easy way for communities to form and for people to join them. It creates more channels for information to be shared and more avenues for people to become involved. Susie, a small town teen from Wyoming, can get fired up to help out Invisible Children and dedicate her time and efforts to support the cause, meeting many people around the world sharing her passion. Without social media, Susie may never have had the opportunity to learn about the struggle in Africa or have found the fuel to dedicate a large part of her life to help end it.
Sometimes easy access to many social outlets will mean that real life interactions are being ignored for online stimuli. While Susie found a great community to be a part of largely online, she may have started to ignore her friends at school. Katie and Todd aren't the perfect friends for Katie, they don't share a lot of the same interests and prefer the community of their small town, but they are loyal and miss Katie as she fades away from their lives. Susie chooses to stay online on forums and blogs dedicated to her cause, even during school lunches.
While social media has no doubt done a great deal of work in bringing people together, has it also spawned a generation of people who lack skills in real life communication? By creating havens out of online communities, we may have created an escape for people when faced with interpersonal conflict.
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